EU government has 2 sides - good and bad - and they are the same - government makes much more intervention into markets than in US, by more strict regulations etc. This is usually a case with member states governments too. Bad side of this is that eurocrats from Brussels tend to invent thousands of stupid laws (like infamous rule of cucumber size and curve). On the other hand this prevented us from deep crisis that USA faced - banking systems are working here more traditional, less risky way.